


interlude

by ioncehadabrain



Series: the year of letting go [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 04:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16569608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioncehadabrain/pseuds/ioncehadabrain
Summary: "eighty-six Charlie came over."





	interlude

one afternoon they decided to rebel against fate.

she was leaning back against the tree (the one specifically reserved for post-sparring comfort) and hearing every fiber of her entire body exhale all at once. he was lying not so far away on the piece of ground thoroughly pierced (courtesy of Tenten’s one particularly nasty morning-star rain), invincible hair woven with dirt, arms and legs thrown in a pose most uncharacteristically disgraceful, and yet nonetheless was still looking like the delicate noble thing amidst a field of broken blades. their joined erratic breathing filled the hot thick sweaty summer air. somewhere, a beat fell in place, and then: you were right.

Tenten scrunched her nose: was i now?

Neji kept his eyes trained on the sun-stained edge of the foliage above his head, and focused on calming his breath; in and between inhaling and exhaling, words slowly trailed out of his mouth: aiming for and shutting down the pressure points is, theoretically, not an entirely impossible task without the byakugan.

theoretically speaking, they both knew it was more of a personal statement verging on freewill display rather than an evaluation of practical combat situation. but for what it was worth, should he one day lose his byakugan to some unfortunate head-to-head in this soiled world, he'd still have his other skills to hold on to, theories made into reality to adapt to, and people to rely on— a sum of who and what that had pulled him into the ninja that he was, the person that he was. the hyuuga neji as she had come to know and he had come to think of himself as, easier and more natural with each day spent in her presence.

.

.

.

she chose the windiest of day to go to their old training ground and didn't bat an eyelash as she casually summoned a barrier dome and planted it against the howling winds so as to cover the target posts (the ones worn and so ordinary as seen and found anywhere on a shinobi kid’s playground and thus had been way below her level for longer than she cared to keep track of now). then, as an afterthought, she also retrieved the basic throwing scrolls which, as it had been so aptly named, contained nothing but the basic child's play sort of attempts at inflicting damage on another human being, another ninja: the first stepping stone onto the path to make some previously distant stranger’s soul an opponent to pave the way.

one, two, three, thud— a kunai: edges tamed, so blunt its tip was almost already gone; still it could go pretty deep into the wooden body if thrown at the right angle with a slight teeny bit of chakra spiral – and so it did.

four, five, six— a dagger: its blade bent and twisted into a line of countless little curves, in and out then in and out then in and out, as if munched and chewed over by some aggressive rat during the peak of teeth-baring season, only except it was time and resentment and sweat and blood and maybe some laughs, too.

seven, eight, nine— senbons broken in half, shurikens missing all their wings, morning-stars without thorns— thud. thud. thud.

ten.

she walked over to the target post, now bearing the multiple blunt wounds and veteran killing tools in their last moments, and sat down. legs crossed, palms up, one clubbed inside the other, back straight, head raised, eyes closed. outside the dome, the winds were wailing, branches cracking, shrieking, leaves washed and blown away to fall and die in a far-off place. away from home, last moments so turbulent, so violent, so helpless, so robbed-off, so utterly alone.

.

.

.

at his grave it was always too quiet, as if to prove to her that the world of the dead and the world of the living must remain separated, cut clear, entirely off-shore to each other. there was no such thing as a sign of a lingering soul influencing the realm of the living. in the midst of a storm, she found the eye of the tempest, the silence was so ironic and yet sincere and honest at the same damn time, she knew it to be the truth, the answer to her raging mind.

_(you_ asked a question, Tenten, and I answered. we don't lie to each other.)

(indeed, even in death you are still right. bastard.)


End file.
